A leading provider of online educational services was looking to transform its business
processes to address its bottom line. Many of its processes were inefficient—or even
manual—and it urgently needed to simplify and automate its finance operations to
create new efficiencies and better position the company for future growth. The company
needed to streamline its finance processes, become more efficient, and reduce errors by
modernizing its finance system and putting more analytical power in the hands of users,
using Oracle R12 as its platform of choice.

PwC had previously helped the company with business process improvement efforts. The
company’s Chief Accounting Officer and its Vice President of Procurement and Strategic
Sourcing brought us back to conduct a full business process assessment. We assembled
a cross-functional PwC team that included Oracle technology specialists, management
and technology consultants, and outsourcing and change management professionals. As
we implemented the finance transformation, we simultaneously upgraded the technology
from Oracle R11i to R12. We used both onsite and offshore resources to bring value to
the client. The Oracle practice led the way, with assistance from the organizational and
change management team, and from assurance and tax.

As the business process improvements have gradually come online and been put
into practice, the company has been able to measure each improvement’s return on
investment either monthly or quarterly. To date, the improvements are performing
remarkably well—up to 100 percent better than our original baseline predictions.

PwC has also helped the company embrace project lifecycle management, creating a
project governance structure that identifies projects that are most likely to impact the
bottom line. With its completely transformed and newly standardized finance business
processes, the company is now much better positioned for future growth.